OM! PHILOSOPHY | METAPHYSICS & EPISTEMOLOGY | All the major steps of science in the past were done by people who were very aware of methodological , fundamental , even Metaphysical questions being posed . When Heisenberg does quantum mechanics , Heisenberg is in a completely Philosophical mind . ~ Carlo Rovelli

PHILOSOPHY

Furthermore , the very attempt to define how a philosophical work is supposed to be connected with other efforts to deal with the same subject-matter drags in an extraneous concern , and what is really important for the cognition of the truth is obscured .

The more conventional opinion gets fixated on the antithesis of truth and falsity , the more it tends to expect a given philosophical system to be either accepted or contradicted ; and hence it finds only acceptance or rejection .

It does not comprehend the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive unfolding of truth , but rather sees in it simple disagreements .

The bud disappears in the bursting-forth of the blossom , and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter ; similarly , when the fruit appears , the blossom is shown up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant , and the fruit now emerges as the truth of it instead .

These forms are not just distinguished from one another , they also supplant one another as mutually incompatible .

Yet at the same time their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic unity in which they not only do not conflict , but in which each is as necessary as the other ; and this mutual necessity alone constitutes the life of the whole .

But one who rejects a philosophical system does not usually comprehend what one is doing in this way ; and one who grasps the contradiction between them does not , as a general rule , know how to free it from its one-sidedness , or maintain it in its freedom by recognizing the reciprocally necessary moments that take shape as a conflict and seeming incompatibility .

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Demanding and supplying these explanations passes readily enough as a concern with what is essential .

Where could the inner meaning of a philosophical work find fuller expression than in its aims and results , and how could these be more exactly known than by distinguishing them from everything else the age brings forth in this sphere ?

Yet when this activity is taken for more than the mere beginnings of cognition , when it is allowed to pass for actual cognition , then it should be reckoned as no more than a device for evading the real issue , a way of creating an impression of hard work and serious commitment to the problem , while actually sparing oneself both .

For the real issue is not exhausted by stating it as an aim , but by carrying it out , nor is the result the actual whole , but rather the result together with the process through which it came about .

The aim by itself is a lifeless universal , just as the guiding tendency is a mere drive that as yet lacks an actual existence ; and the bare result is the corpse which has left the guiding tendency behind it .

Similarly , the specific difference of a thing is rather its limit ; it is where the thing stops , or it is what the thing is not .

This concern with aim or results , with differentiating and passing judgement on various thinkers is therefore an easier task than it might seem .

For instead of getting involved in the real issue , this kind of activity is always away beyond it ; instead of tarrying with it , and losing itself in it , this kind of knowing is forever grasping at something new ; it remains essentially preoccupied with itself instead of being preoccupied with the real issue and surrendering to it .

To judge a thing that has substance and solid worth is quite easy , to comprehend it is much harder , and to blend judgement and comprehension in a definitive description is the hardest thing of all .

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Culture and its laborious emergence from the immediacy of substantial life must always begin by getting acquainted with general principles and points of view , so as at first to work up to a general conception of the real issue , as well as learning to support and refute the general conception with reasons ; then to apprehend the rich and concrete abundance by differential classification ; and finally to give accurate instruction and pass serious judgement upon it .

From its very beginning , culture must leave room for the earnestness of life in its concrete richness ; this leads the way to an experience of the real issue .

And even when the real issue has been penetrated to its depths by serious speculative effort , this kind of knowing and judging will still retain its appropriate place in ordinary conversation .

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The true shape in which truth exists can only be the scientific system of such truth .

To help bring philosophy closer to the form of Science , to the goal where it can lay aside the title " love of knowing " and be actual knowing — that is what I have set myself to do .

The inner necessity that knowing should be Science lies in its nature , and only the systematic exposition of philosophy itself provides it .

But the external necessity , so far as it is grasped in a general way , setting aside accidental matters of person and motivation , is the same as the inner , or in other words it lies in the shape in which time sets forth the sequential existence of its moments .

To show that now is the time for philosophy to be raised to the status of a Science would therefore be the only true justification of any effort that has this aim , for to do so would demonstrate the necessity of the aim , would indeed at the same time be the accomplishing of it .

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To lay down that the true shape of truth is scientific — or , what is the same thing , to maintain that truth has only the Notion as the element of its existence — seems , I know , to contradict a view which is in our time as prevalent as it is pretentious , and to go against what that view implies .

Some explanation therefore seems called for , even though it must for the present be no more than a bare assertion , like the view that it contradicts .

If , namely , the True exists only in what , or better as what , is sometimes called intuition , sometimes immediate knowledge of the Absolute , religion or being — not at the centre of divine love but the being of the divine love itself — then what is required in the exposition of philosophy is , from this viewpoint , rather the opposite of the form of the Notion .

For the Absolute is not supposed to be comprehended , it is to be felt and intuited ; not the Notion of the Absolute , but the feeling and intuition of it , must govern what is said , and must be expressed by it .

THE concept of the atom goes back much further than the beginning of modern science in the seventeenth century ; it has its origin in ancient Greek philosophy and was in that early period the central concept of materialism . . .

If it becomes desirable to formulate any cognition as science , it will be necessary first to determine accurately those peculiar features which no other science has in common with it , constituting its characteristics ; otherwise the boundaries of all sciences ; otherwise . . .

Philosophy being nothing else but the study of wisdom and truth , it may with reason be expected , that those who have spent the most time and pains in it should enjoy a greater calm and serenity of mind . . .

It is customary to preface a work with an explanation of the author's aim , why one wrote the book , and the relationship in which one believes it to stand to other earlier or contemporary treatises on the same subject . In the case of a philosophical work , however . . .

|| PART I | CONCERNING GOD || DEFINITIONS || D1 | By that which is self-caused , I mean that whose essence involves existence ; or that whose nature can be conceived only as existing . | D2 | A thing is said to be finite in its own kind , when . . .

| #1 | The world is everything that is the case . | 1.1 | The world is the totality of facts , not of things . | 1.11 | The world is determined by the facts , and by these being all the facts . | 1.12 | For the totality of facts determines what is the case , and also all that . . .

" Hammer on ! hammer on ! " is the first principle of success . Without work you can never succeed . A lazy person is bound to perish in the " struggle for existence " , one cannot live , one must die .

Rise to the GOD-Consciousness to such a degree that for you your past relations may become a complete blank . . . Your relation to the world should become the relation of GOD to the world ; an entire change .

From one point of view , mind and intellect are not Brahman ; but on the other hand , mind and intellect are nothing else but Brahman , even the body is nothing else but Brahman , and Everything in the world is nothing else but Brahman .

Can you transfer your consciousness ? Put it here , your consciousness should sit here . Can it sit here ? Now it is inside your body . It is operating through the body and you are seeing through the aperture of your eyes and then perceiving a person like me here .

Immanuel Kant is said to have been woken up by Hume from " dogmatic slumber " and brought about a " Copernican revolution " in the field of philosophy . In Kant we begin to reap the ripe fruits of philosophy , for it is here that it shows signs of its having reached maturity and full development .

SWAMI-KRISHNANANDA.ORGWelcome to the website of Swami Krishnananda . Here you will find eBooks and articles as well as audios and videos on yoga , meditation , philosophy , scriptural texts and related subjects .

PRABODHASUDHAKARA | THE NECTAR OCEAN OF ENLIGHTENMENT | PART 2 | DEVOTION | SRI ADI SANKARACARYA | TRANSLATION & BHASYA BY SAMVID | PSNOE SERIES || The devotional fervour which the author exhibits in the four concluding sections of this work would appear to be in sharp contrast with the author's relentless pursuit of truth through rational enquiry , found in the earlier sections .

I am composing the Atmabodha , or Self-Knowledge , to serve the needs of those who have been purified through the practice of austerities, and who are peaceful in heart , free from cravings , and desirous of Liberation .

One who has one's mind Self-absorbed through Yoga , and who has the vision of sameness everywhere , sees this Self existing in everything , and everything in one's Self . | One who sees Me in everything , and sees all things in Me — I do not go out of one's vision , and one also is not lost to My vision .

Some minds with too much self reliance in themselves , and without considering the true nature of things , give them different forms and colours , according to their own conceptions and opinions , though far from truth .

VOL 1 | BOOK II | CHAP XVII | VERSE 10 | ON THE CONTENTS OF THE WORK | IT CONTAINS SIX BOOKS all fraught with sentences full of reason , and each distinct from the other in its import . It has many verses containing chosen examples on all subjects .

DANGEROUS HABIT OF CONSTANT SELF JUSTIFICATION | To go on claiming this so-called freedom , which is no more than a subjection to certain ignorant cosmic forces , is to indulge in a blind contradiction and to claim the right to lead a double life

Imagination in the mind always exaggerates . Exaggeration is a modification of lie . Aspirants should not exaggerate . They should utter words with mathematical and scientific precision . An aspirant is asked to give up company and observe Mouna .

MahaBhava is a Divine Ecstasy . It shakes the body and mind to their very foundation . It is like a huge elephant entering a small hut . The house shakes to its foundation . Perhaps it falls to pieces .

Athato bhaktim vyakhyasyamah | 1. Now , therefore , we shall teach Bhakti , or the Religion of Divine Love . 2. Now , therefore , I will try to explain the process of devotional service . 3. Now , therefore , the doctrine of devotion we shall expound .

Rama has written in simple language , the ordinary thoughts and ideas that satisfy the mind and show the Divine Vision to the writer both within and without . The whole world shining like the diamond is becoming the Divine Ocean .

OM! In Humans , The Past exists only in memory , which is retention , replaying , reconfiguration of stories , fantasies , fiction ; The Future is expectation and fantasy : These thoughts play in The Present , creating a false sense of continuity of personality — Nothing but DREAMING it is .|| SSSV 32.3 ||